Cadel Evans has counted himself out of winning his retirement race. Evans has unveiled the course for the inaugural Great Ocean Road race on 1 February that will carry his name.
The 174km course in and around Geelong will not be hilly enough for the only Australian to win the Tour de France.
Evans said it would have been selfish to make the course tougher and he was more interested in the long-term success of the event.
“It isn’t a race for me - I count myself out,” he said at a media conference in Melbourne on Wednesday. “I want to finish well.”
He expects Australian Orica-GreenEDGE sprinter Michael Matthews to be one of the race favourites.
Evans confirmed last month he would retire on 1 February and now he has outlined the race program for the last month of his career. He will race at the Australian road championships in Ballarat on 11 January, followed by the Tour Down Under in Adelaide from 17-25 January and then his retirement race.
Evans’s best chance of one last win would appear to be at the Adelaide Tour, where he won a stage and finished a narrow second overall behind compatriot Simon Gerrans. He also finished runner-up to Gerrans this year at the road nationals.
But Evans said Gerrans’ Orica-GreenEDGE team will have too strong a presence at the race and will make it too tough for him to win.
The day before the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, organisers have also scheduled a 113km women’s race and a mass participation ride for the public.
